Happy (happy happy happy) New Year!
Dear Lufavore,
We hope you’re having a warm and cozy holiday with friends and family, gearing up for an ambitious year ahead. We’re writing to you now to share some exciting news. And to thank you for helping us grow through your support, feedback, guidance, encouragement, criticism, and otherwise. It’s been an unbelievable year. We’ve grown a whole lot and have some really big news to share with you, just in time for the new year. But first, a look back...
Our vision is a city of rooftop farms.
Our vision is to grow food where people live and grow it more sustainably. Rooftop farms, responsible agriculture, and a vast local community of partners, pick-up points, and Lufavores. All of which started when we opened the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse in 2011, right in Montreal.
Since then, we’ve demonstrated that urban farming is indeed a commercially viable and smarter way to feed cities. During our first summer over five years ago, we delivered a couple hundred baskets a week. Now we’re up over 9000 (what the what?!). This means that about 2% of Montrealers eat veggies harvested to order, grown right here in Montreal, using no new land, less water and resources, and bug-eat-bug pest control.
A shout-out to all our amazing partners.
To complete our local food system, we’ve partnered with hundreds of local farms and foodmakers over the years to bring everything we can to the Marketplace (from seasonal produce to fresh-baked bread to sustainable meats, dairy, pasta, you name it).
A special nod to Ferme Nordest and Ferme La Rose Des Vents, our local butchers who bring Lufavores local and sustainably raised meats. And La Fabrique Arhoma, whose team is up all night baking hundreds of different breads and pastries on demand every day. And we now have perfect local strawberries available all winter long, courtesy of La Frissonnante.
This year, we also doubled our delivery network to include pick-up points throughout Verdun, HoMa, Rosemont, le Plateau and Laval, and we launched deliveries as far as Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres. (Thank you, PUPs!) We also grew our fleet of electric cars and expanded home deliveries well beyond Montreal, as far as Mascouche and Candiac.
Our team is growing fast (and you can be a part of it).
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We have an incredible team that works around the clock to keep the hive humming, and they’ve helped fuel much of our progress this year. In 2016, our team grew from 85 to over 120 employees. And, with more and more Lufavores joining the family, we need even more hands to help out. We want you! To get details about current job openings and how to apply, visit our Careers page.
Annnndd here. we. go.
With two greenhouses under our belt, over 9000 Lufavores eating fresh, local, responsible, and some serious progress made towards our humble goal of feeding cities, we’d like to now announce the opening of our third and largest and bestest rooftop greenhouse. (Aaahhhhhh!)
We started construction in June, seeded in November, and will start harvesting in January. This greenhouse is on an industrial rooftop in Anjou, and it’s 63,000 square feet of farm (twice the size of our first) that’s dedicated to greens and other veggies...like 43 varieties of greens and other veggies. Yah.
Starting in a couple weeks, we’ll be harvesting thousands of bunches of lettuces, chard, bok choy, kale, collards, mustard, celery, rapini, arugula, cress, spinach, radish, kohlrabi, herbs, broccoli, and cauliflower...each and every week.
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It’s crazy. And wicked exciting. And a little stressful. And we truly can’t believe we are where we are today. Wishing you all a bright, adventurous, and healthy new year. Onwards!
Happy (happy happy happy) New Year!
- Lauren, Founding Member
